The Last Day of My Childhood
by ChaDonSom
Summary: Maria-062 returns to the day she was enlisted for duty as a Spartan.


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Today I write back on the last memory I have of my childhood – a childhood whose end was far more defined than most. In fact, it was, in all respects, short. It ended when I was but six years old. I would hardly be able to remember the day, had it not been for what ended my childhood then. It was ... a simple day, like most childhood days were. Making mud-pies, I remember, was a lot easier on Reach than Earth. I think the move was what got to me the most before ... that incident. My family saw something in Reach and moved there when I was four. The only thing I remember about the Earth of my childhood is what I mentioned – the mud there didn't stick and form cakes as well as the Reach mud did. Anyway, that day, I was making mud-pies, working from rain the night before had brought. I, of course, had all my toys with me. They were the only ones who would eat my cakes. They were the first ones I missed when I was ... taken.

My second batch of mud-pies was just about ready to eat when they came. First, it was just another one of the cars that passed by on our road all the time. However, this one continued to the end of the road, to our house. The vehicle was bigger than any I had seen before; a heavily armored beast. The look of it just proclaimed "heavy duty". An eagle with the letters "UNSC" overlaid was painted on the side. I would have run inside to my parents if they hadn't been at work. I can't remember why they let me stay home that day in the first place. But, I was home, and that was all that mattered.

An almost young woman stepped out of a door I failed to see, while from the other side an officer rounded the vehicle to meet her. She called out to me. I can't remember what it was she said, but it dropped the defenses my parents had built up against strangers. She interviewed me. Asked a few questions. None of them seemed important to me, except, in my childish mind, the last one.

She pulled a round disk of nickel from one of the pockets on her out-of-place lab coat. Presenting it to me, she told me of the currency people used way back when Earth was the only colony. She told me it was a coin, a unit of that currency. One side had the face of a man, the other an eagle. She arranged it in her hand in some sort of way and threw it straight up, it spinning erratically. Somehow she had the time to ask me which side it was going to land on, because I answered. I told her it would land on the man's face. The coin made a soft splat as it hit the mud, the man's face looking confidently out towards the road. She has since told me she was not serious, but I will never forget her reprimand for that. She asked me why I had lied to her. All I could do was sputter a low "I don't know."

I forgot about her as soon as she left. As a child, the UNSC just wasn't important to me. My parents were completely oblivious. I imagine I would feel sorry for them if I was allowed more time to attach to them. That night was the last night they saw me; the last night of my childhood. I was free that night. That was the last time my family lived in that house. From the next day on, my family was my division.

I woke in a relatively small, waiting-room like area with several other children my age. A muffled sound, a machine's hum almost, pervaded the air like it shouldn't have, like it was a vibration. The room lurched, leaving me feeling weightless for a second. Children grabbed their chairs. I suppose I did, too. I can't remember exactly. It was like an elevator – the descent was steady, not like falling. I guess that makes sense, considering what I found out later – to my childish mind, we were in a "nairplane". I was taught later that it was a Pelican.

As soon as it landed, my group was lead alongside others from the LZ to a rather open auditorium of sorts. It wasn't designed to be one. It had a rectangular structure – more like a gym. Our leaders pointed us toward one wall and waited. A woman – the exact same one I saw the day before, which I remembered now – appeared in a window near the top of the wall. Her voice echoed as she informed us of the reason we were there. She told of an alien race that was terrorizing humans everywhere, slowly turning their colonies to glass. She told how it had begun suddenly with Harvest, then Bliss, Madrigal, Hat Yai, Eridanus II, Jericho VII, Charybdis IX, world upon world upon world, billions upon billions dead. She told of how the UNSC – United Nations Space Command – had exhausted their resources, not trying to defeat the alien alliance, not trying to stop them, trying to survive. She told of how we would be the ones who would do more than that. We would survive, stop, and defeat this new enemy. She told us, "You will be the protectors of Earth and all her colonies."

That was the first day of our training. We underwent it until we were twelve. Then was the augmentation. Halsey (for that was the woman's name) prepared a process by which we would be genetically augmented – transformed into super-soldiers – but only if we were genetically pure. There was no way to know. Some of us weren't. Some of us didn't survive. I was lucky enough to be one of the thirty-three that did. We became the Spartans, performing suicide missions with deadly accuracy and efficiency, never dying when we should have.

Only one obstacle proved too much for us – the very one we were created for. The alien alliance: The Covenant. It was what killed every one of us. Except for me. Well, and John-117. The Master Chief. He was the reason we survived; he died saving the galaxy. The portal killed him.

After the war, I retired. I was able to start a family on Earth – the only Spartan ever to do so. I hope to move to Reach someday, when the terraforming is finished. The trauma of the war has pervaded my home, and it will be a long road to a simple life. Perhaps I will get there someday. I might be able to have uninterrupted sleep for once. I might be able to express my emotions freely. I might be able to escape the invading questions of "Weren't you a Spartan?" One day, maybe, I might just forget the war. One day, I hope, but I do know that I will never forget the last day of my childhood.

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